


Even the sun sets in paradise

by Ellana17



Series: Trying to call home [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellana17/pseuds/Ellana17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh man,” Sam exclaimed in disbelief. “Did you shoot Iron Man out of the sky?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even the sun sets in paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s the third and last installment of the tags I had in mind for Civil War. I swear I wasn’t trying to write something too angsty this time, this movie was apparently too much for my sanity anyway.

At times the compound they were staying at seemed so big to him that Steve suspected his enhanced visual memory was the only thing preventing him from getting lost. He made his way to Wanda’s room as he often did these days and found her lost in thoughts in the large bedroom that was hers for now. Steve found the empty white walls unnerving. They were grateful to T’Challa to give them a safe haven of course, but they all were beginning to feel restless.

“Hey,” he said quietly to make his presence known.

Wanda turned her green eyes to him and Steve’s heart clenched at seeing them so empty. What had they been thinking dragging her into this? She was just a kid. His fists clenched as he thought about that Spider-kid Tony had brought along with him. They were supposed to protect those kids, not make them fight their battles for them.

“You okay?” he asked as he sat down next to her.

“I miss home,” she said in a broken voice, twisting her fingers. Then she shrugged but Steve could see right through that brave front she was trying to put on. A good part of her city had been destroyed after all. “I left my guitar there,” she added and Steve realized with a start that she was not talking about Sokovia after all.

“How long have you been playing?” he asked and Wanda’s eyes seemed to regain a little bit of life.

That was when the alarm went off.

Both of them got on their feet at once and made their way through the long corridors to the control room. For someone as pacific as T’Challa, he sure did have a lot of weapons around. When they entered the room, Steve was glad to note that the rest of the team was already there, ready for action.

“What’s going on?” he questioned with more force than intended.

“We have a trespasser,” T’Challa answered, his eyes never leaving the screen where a red dot was rapidly making its way to their hideout.

“We’re under attack, you mean,” Barton stated, his hands automatically going to his bow.

“The sensors seem to indicate heavy weaponry and a potential threat,” the king of Wakanda informed them.

“Potential?” Barton parroted, dumbfounded by T’Challa apparent calm.

“You needn’t worry,” T’Challa said as he pressed a few keys. “We people of Wakanda have learned to defend ourselves when necessary.”

“No shit,” Sam mumbled as two new dots appeared on the screen, aiming straight at the other one.

“Wait a second,” Scott cut in, looking closely at the screen. “I’ve seen that kind of energy signature before… They’re Stark’s repulsors,” he realized just as the dots on the screen collided right before their eyes.

“Oh man,” Sam exclaimed in disbelief. “Did you shoot Iron Man out of the sky?”

Steve took a deep, calming breath and forced his fists to unclench. “Is he okay?” he asked in a strained voice.

“He seems to have crash-landed a few kilometers north,” T’Challa answered looking contrite. “I’m only now able to detect life signs. This is most strange,” he added.

“The suit must be fried,” Scott supplied. “He won’t be able to make it back here.”

“I’ll send some of my people to retrieve him,” T’Challa stated as Tony’s exact location appeared on the screen.

“I think you’ve done enough,” Steve informed in a cold voice. He squared his shoulders. “I’ll go get him.”

Then he left the room without looking back.

“He does know Tony’s several miles out, right?” Sam asked around.

“Didn’t seem to faze him,” Barton shrugged.

 

ooo

Tony was just starting to enjoy the scenery when the suit’s warning bells went off. “What’s going on?” he asked but soon realized that two guided missiles were making their way to him. “Crap,” he exclaimed as he tried a collision avoidance maneuver. “Yes!” he shouted when the two missiles collided behind him. He did not manage to avoid the blast wave, though.

Tony might have blacked out from the shock. He opened his eyes just in time to realize that he was falling. The suit was completely irresponsive and he could not see anything. Then, praying that his life would not flash before his eyes before he died, he felt a shock, then another, and another and realized that he was probably falling through the trees. His last thoughts were that it would be a shame to scratch the suit.

When he woke up again, Tony’s hands immediately shot up to his helmet. He took it off forcefully and took a deep breath of fresh air. He stayed there for a long time, sprawled on the ground as the sun passed through the trees and the birds continued chirping as though a large pile of metal had not just crash-landed right into their peaceful forest. Tony finally gathered enough strength to roll over and started taking the suit off. It was a long time since he had to take it off entirely by hands but the suit seemed, for all intends and purposes, truly and completely fried. He groaned in pain as he took the gauntlet off first, the boots came off next and, as he struggled to get the chest plate off, he wished that any of his bots were there, even Dummy would have made a finer job at taking off the suit than he was.

The suit was clearly out of commission. What were those things anyway? A simple missile would never have gotten the better of his suit. They were probably equipped with some kind of EMP technology. Wakandan technology was clearly more advanced than any of them suspected. He would have to talk about that with T’Challa at some point. If Tony made it out of there alive, that is.

When Tony finally gathered enough strength to stand up, he promptly fell on his ass again as a sharp pain ran from his ankle all the way up his leg.

“Dammit to hell,” he cried out and punched the ground with his fist in frustration. Why had he though coming here was a good idea again? He was such an idiot.

Now that he knew what to expect when standing up, Tony managed to go up on his feet, and started on gathering some woods to light a campfire. He would probably have to spend the night right where he was until his ankle was better enough for him to walk through the forest. The only problem, he realized as he forcefully rubbed two rocks together over the pieces of wood, was that he had no idea where to go. Tony had left New York as soon as he had located the Avengers’ position. He did not have a compass (who even used those anymore?) because the suit was equipped with its own GPS, he had not even bothered with water or food supplies! Where would he have put them anyway? He should probably think about adding pockets to the suit next time he made an upgrade.

Which would be right now, Tony thought as he grabbed the helmet and the single screwdriver he kept in case of emergency. If he could at least salvage the helmet, he would have access to the communication system. No one was coming for him, he would have to manage by himself once more.

It was hard to say how long Tony had been working on the suit when he heard a faint noise in the bushes not too far from where he was. He grabbed a wooden stick from the campfire and moved it around, trying to light up his surroundings. He had not realized how dark it was until now.

The fire probably had attracted some kind of animal; Wakanda was famous for its panthers after all. Just as Tony was getting ready to fight the fearsome creature only armed with a wooden stick, he caught sight of blond hair and very familiar blue eyes looking right at him. The fire sharpened his features and made his hair look like gold and for a moment Tony vaguely wondered if he had not hit his head during the fall as well.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t try to find me,” Steve stated, coming to a stop by the fire.

That settled it then; it really was Steve. Tony did not say anything, just drinking in the sight of him until his head was spinning. He blamed it on a possible concussion, or maybe the fumes from the fire were finally getting to his head.

“I said I wouldn’t ask, not that I wouldn’t find out,” he replied at last.

Steve sighed and sat down a few feet away from him. “Did you at least tell someone where you went before barging in alone?” Steve chastised.

“And having all of the US armed forces following me here?” Tony exclaimed. “You’re all fugitives now, you know that, right? So don’t you dare lecture me about being reckless. What are you doing out there anyway?”

“We saw you go down and thought that the suit must have been damaged,” Steve answered.

“So what?” Tony snorted. “You decided to come on your own to rescue me?”

“At least I brought water,” he said, tossing a bottle at Tony. “Is your suit badly damaged?” he asked when Tony had finished drinking.

“Pretty badly,” Tony nodded. “I can’t even turn the helmet back on. I don’t know what those things were exactly but they’re really good.”

“T’Challa thought we were under attack. We didn’t know it was you,” Steve explained.

“Well, we wouldn’t be in this mess if you had told me where you were going in the first place, now would we?”

“You know I couldn’t,” Steve sighed.

“No, I really don’t,” Tony replied. “I’m getting tired of your bullshit, Rogers. You had plenty of occasions to let me know where you were going. You could even have arranged for your good old pal Romanoff to pass on a message or something. But no, instead you took off without so much as a goodbye, left me a freaking letter – and I think this one takes the cake here, old man – and took off with half our team!”

“Well you didn’t waste time finding some replacement, did you?” At Tony’s frown, Steve went on, “What were you thinking bringing that kid into all this, Tony? Are you completely out of your mind?”

“Peter can handle himself,” Tony dismissed.

“It sure didn’t seem like it.”

“I sent him home when things got worse, don’t worry your pretty head about it,” Tony countered.

“Do you really think that he’s going to stop after this? He’s going to get out there again and take on some guys that’ll be too big for him,” Steve exclaimed.

“Sounds like someone I know,” Tony said and Steve groaned in frustration.

“He’s going to get hurt and it’ll be _our_ fault because we didn’t protect him like we were supposed to.”

“Don’t try this bullshit on me, Cap. I’ve heard all the stories more times than I can count; getting the crap beaten out of you again and again never stopped _you_!”

“That’s different!”

“How is it different? Peter has every right to decide what he wants to do with his life. He was getting out there long before he met me. He needs to do something; he can’t just stand by and watch as the world falls to shit around him. And nothing either of us can say would ever change that.”

Steve did not even dignify him with an answer.

“Hey,” Tony exclaimed. “I know I made a lot of mistakes but let me tell you, asking for Peter’s help was not one of them.”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“Okay Captain Righteousness, you should get off your high horse once in a while and stop judging people because – newsflash – we can’t all be as perfect as you!”

“I’m not- I’m not _judging_ you!”

“Only highly disapproving of everything I do,” Tony cut in.

“What? Why would you think that? I know you, okay? I _know_ you’re always trying to make things better around you.”

Tony snorted. “Doesn’t look like I do.”

Tony did not even know where to start. Selling weapons? Getting innocent people killed? How about Ultron? Sokovia? God, that kid had _died_ because of him, because of what he had done. And Pietro too. Barton had almost died too, all because of him.

“We all make mistakes,” Steve stated.

“Yeah, we certainly do,” Tony agreed bitterly, lifting up his head and looking straight at Steve.

“Tony…”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked quietly even though he was pretty sure to hate the answer. “Not what you said in your letter. I want to know the real reason.”

Steve closed his eyes for a second. “I didn’t say anything because I- I didn’t want to have to choose between my friend… and you,” he said in a whisper.

That was like a kick in the guts to Tony. Convenience had brought them together in the first place of course, but he had thought that something more had kept them united.

“I see,” he said, his throat constricting.

“Tony, I-” Steve started, extending a hand to him but Tony flinched away. “You know I didn’t mean it like that,” he tried to explain.

“Do I? Because you did choose in the end, Cap. So does that make you an idiot, a coward or simply a hypocrite? I genuinely don’t know which one is worst.”

“Tony…”

“I’m kind of tired,” Tony declared because he could not take anymore of this.

“You shouldn’t sleep,” Steve said. “You probably have a concussion.”

“Well, who cares anyway?” Tony replied before lying down on the ground, his back to Steve.

ooo

When he woke up, Tony groggily registered the birds chirping outside and wondered if he had left the window open before going to bed. Then he felt the grass under him and something crawling up his leg. He sat up suddenly, brushing away the insect with his hand. Right. He was in a forest in Wakanda. Freaking Wakanda.

“Morning.”

“You’re awfully chipper in the morning,” Tony groaned, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t suppose we have any coffee?”

“Sorry, we’re all out of coffee,” Steve answered with a small smile. He tossed an energy bar on Tony’s lap. “Eat, you’re going to need your strength if we want to make it back to the compound before nightfall.”

Tony was not hungry but took a tiny bit of it anyway.

“How’s your leg?” Steve asked.

“It’s fine,” Tony answered as Steve extended a hand to help him up. Tony swayed but managed to stay on his feet and quickly let go of Steve. He made his way to Steve’s backpack and tried to squeeze as much of the suit as he could, willing for his heart to stop beating quite so fast. He put the backpack on and grabbed the helmet and one boot that were left on the ground.

“You shouldn’t be carrying anything too heavy,” Steve said as he tried to take the bag from him.

Tony stepped out of reach. “It’s fine,” he said again more forcefully. “Lead the way.”

Steve huffed and started walking without a word. It was going to be a long day.

They walked in silence through the forest for hours. Well, Tony stayed mostly silent as Steve tried to make small talk with him. Steve turned to him, took a breath and then turned away. He did the exact same thing twice before Tony finally snapped.

“What?” he barked.

“I guess I-” Steve started to say. “I want to tell you again how sorry I am.”

Tony rolled his eyes as he readjusted the backpack. “It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t really mean it,” he noted.

“But I do mean it Tony, I really am sorry.” Steve stopped to face him.

Tony huffed in annoyance but stopped all the same. “And what for exactly? We’ve already established that you made a lot of mistakes lately.”

“I should have told you everything sooner. For all I say about acting together as a team, I’ve been the worst of teammate but believe me when I say that I truly was trying to spare you. I can only imagine what you felt when you lost your parents all those years ago, I didn’t want you to go through this all over again. I feared it would crush you.”

“And we all know what happens when Iron Man loses it,” Tony hissed.

“I was afraid you’d do something reckless,” Steve admitted.

“Like trying to take on Hydra all on my own, or worse, trying to find your precious Bucky to give him a piece of my mind,” Tony supplied.

“Bucky can handle himself, I was more worried about you,” Steve explained.

“Because I can’t handle myself?” Tony exclaimed.

“Stop twisting my words! That’s not what I meant,” Steve replied with force.

“What did you mean then? You better start making some sense soon.”

“I care about you, okay?” Steve exclaimed. “I care about your wellbeing, and I worry when you do something incredibly brave and stupid like flying a nuke into a wormhole or giving your address to a known terrorist so he can blow up your house or acting on your own without notifying the team first! I worry about you when you put yourself in danger recklessly. And I don’t mean that I worry about Iron Man or the suit,” Steve interjected as Tony seemed ready to cut in. “I care about you, Tony Stark, because you’re my friend and I’m sorry I ever gave you reasons to think otherwise,” Steve concluded.

Tony was speechless for once. It did not last long though and he soon regained his composure. “Are you quite finished?” he asked. When Steve nodded curtly, Tony simply resumed walking.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Steve asked, trailing after him.

“What do you want me to say?” The truth was Tony genuinely did not know how to respond to anything Steve had just said. His thoughts were rushing in his head and he was too busy trying not to read too much into it to come up with a coherent answer anyway.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” Steve said finally. “But I’d like a chance to earn your trust back.”

“Steve, you didn’t lose my trust,” he said quietly. “I was angry with you- maybe I still am,” he amended. “But it’s because I trust you that it hurts so much,” he explained. “I just need time to process all this, I guess.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Steve said warily. “But why did you come here if you weren’t ready?”

“I guess I thought we deserved a chance to make things better for both our sakes, and the team’s,” Tony explained.

“I put them all in danger,” Steve stated.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, we’re both to blame here,” Tony reminded him.

“You were trying to save as many people as possible while I was acting behind your back,” Steve argued.

“You wouldn’t have had to if I had just listened to you from the start,” Tony replied. “The Accords weren’t worth what happened. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to follow them through, I’m simply saying they weren’t worth tearing up the team like that.”

“You know what I think of the Accords,” Steve said quietly. “But I’m done fighting you over it. I’m tired of fighting with you, I want us to be a team again.”

“Were we ever, though? We were merely one of Fury’s pet project, nobody expected this so called team to work. I know we saved the Earth from an alien invasion – once – but we caused just as much damage. I was the one to create Ultron because I wanted to save the world, don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten that. Don’t you dare tell me we don’t need the Accords. You saw what happens when we try saving the world by ourselves. What kind of monster doesn’t know the difference between saving the world and ending it? Where do you think Ultron got his twisted sense of reality from?”

“And then you created Vision with Bruce, Thor and Helen Cho’s help, it was a collective effort and it was good teamwork.” Tony shrugged. “He can lift Thor’s hammer!” Steve reminded him.

Tony sighed. “I know what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it but I know where I stand.”

“So you don’t trust me after all. No, look, if you really did, you wouldn’t need politicians watching your every moves, you would trust the team to have your back and stop you from doing something incredibly-”

“Stupid?” Tony supplied.

“Reckless,” Steve corrected.

“I don’t know why I even bother, the team doesn’t need me,” Tony said. “Well, I guess I could still make you some tech from time to time but you don’t need Iron Man, the world doesn’t need Iron Man.”

“But we do need you!” Steve replied. “Look, I know you’re upset Pepper left because you kept putting the team first but-”

Tony snorted. “That wasn’t the only reason, trust me.”

“What do you mean?” Steve turned to Tony but the man was stubbornly looking straight ahead. “I thought-”

“I know what you thought and you’re not entirely wrong but that’s not the only reason. It’s not important,” Tony added.

“Didn’t we agree that it would be nice to have a real conversation for once?” Steve asked stubbornly.

“It’s a conversation you don’t want to have with me, believe me.”

“Why?” Steve asked. “What would be so bad that you-”

“I’m kind of stupidly in love with you,” Tony cut in. Steve came to a stop but Tony did not dare turn around and look at him. He kept on walking, all the while chastising himself for being this stupid.

“I-” Steve said as he caught up to Tony. “I didn’t know- Well I thought I was imagining things- I had hoped-”

Tony snorted. “You had hoped you were imagining things?” he asked sardonically.

“Stop putting words into my mouth!” Steve exclaimed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The blond took a deep breath. “I meant to say that I had hoped you were feeling the same,” Steve finally said. “But you were with Pepper and there was the team to think about, I didn’t want to jeopardize everything just because-”

“What? Because you’re in love with me?” Tony asked in disbelief. He sobered up as soon as he turned and caught sight of Steve’s hurt look.

“Bucky always said I was terrible at this,” Steve mumbled. Tony stiffened visibly. “Look, I didn’t mean to-”

Tony raised his hand to stop him. “How is he anyway? I never asked.”

“As well as can be expected, I guess,” Steve answered finally, surprise clearly written all over his face. “He chose to be frozen again until we find a way to rid him of the brainwashing once and for all,” Steve explained.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said quietly. “I know how much he means to you.”

“Thanks, Tony. I should have told you about all this sooner, I just couldn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Tony cut in. “I mean, it’s not okay but I understand why you didn’t say anything. I have to ask you something, though.”

“Anything you want.”

“You’re really in love with me?” Tony asked in disbelief.

Steve rolled his eyes but he was smiling. “Yes, Tony, I am,” he stated.

“Okay then.”

“That’s all you’ve got to say?” Steve asked.

“What do you want me to say, Cap? I may be a genius but even I need some time to process something like that.”

“You really don’t see it, do you?”

“Don’t see what?”

“Why I love you.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t understand why you would- you know, and I’m not used to not understanding things.”

Steve shook his head, looking both fond and exasperated. “I never thanked you for coming to my rescue in Siberia,” he said instead.

“And look how well that turned out,” Tony noted. Cap gave him a pointed look and Tony cleared his throat awkwardly. “You’re welcome.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to take this?” Steve asked as Tony readjusted his backpack once more.

“I’m good. When will we reach the compound? I need to check on my suit.”

“In a couple hours, I guess,” Steve answered. “It’s kind of nice though, isn’t it? Having no imminent threat hanging over our heads. You should enjoy it.”

“We’re in the middle of a forest with wild animals ready to jump on us at every turn,” Tony underlined.

“But it’s a pretty nice forest, right?”

“You’re one crazy man, Rogers,” Tony said.

“And yet you’re in love with me,” Steve stated with a cheeky smile.

Tony groaned. “Would you let that go? I don’t want to talk about it. And aren’t you and Agent Thirteen an item anyway?”

“It didn’t work out,” Steve explained. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t.” Tony could practically feel Cap rolling his eyes beside him. “Okay, maybe I do. Up until a few minutes ago I was convinced we weren’t even friends and now you’re saying you’ve been in love with me this whole time?”

“Well, not the whole time,” Steve said. “I couldn’t stand you when we first met.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You couldn’t stand me either,” Steve reminded him.

“True,” Tony nodded. “So, how long exactly have you been- you know,” Tony asked.

“Months,” Steve answered. “Maybe a year, I can’t really pinpoint the moment it happened.”

“Was it before or after-” Tony trailed off but Cap understood the question all the same. Was it before or after he nearly annihilated humanity?

“Before,” Steve said quietly.

“I knew you were flirting with me,” Tony smirked.

“I wasn’t.”

“You totally were.”

“I can’t flirt to save my life. Anyway, you were with Pepper, I never would have-”

“If you say so, Captain Righteousness,” Tony snorted.

“I know you’re just getting over your break up with Pepper,” Steve finally said. “But do you think we could give it a try?” He asked. “Us, I mean.”

“Cap,” Tony sighed. “There’s a lot at stake here, we can’t just jump head first like we usually do. There’s the team to think about.”

“It won’t affect the team,” Steve countered.

“It won’t affect-? Of course it will. Even without taking into account the fact that I barely know some of your newest recruits, we have to think about what would happen to the team if we didn’t work out. We don’t have to jump into a relationship simply because we suddenly realized we have feelings for each other!”

“Why not?”

“What about the fact that you’re a fugitive?” Tony added. “We should at least wait for this to die down.”

“But it won’t,” Steve said. “There’ll never be a moment our lives aren’t in danger. We need to live with it; I mean _really_ live. I’m sick of waiting around for things to die down. Last time I waited for a war to end, I ended up frozen for decades and lost the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I won’t let it happen again,” he declared.

“What about the team?” Tony asked quietly.

“Well, Sam and Scott already know,” Steve informed him. “Sam kind of ordered me to call you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I was going to,” Steve countered and Tony rolled his eyes. “And I’m pretty sure Natasha was trying to set us up a few months back,” he added.

“She does seem to take a pretty big interest in your love life,” Tony noted.

“She’s just trying to help,” he said.

“So, there really is nothing stopping us, I guess,” Tony mused.

“Unless you have some more concerns?” Steve enquired.

“Nah, you’ve convinced me.”

“Good,” Steve nodded.

“How far did you say we were from the compound again?”

“Don’t worry about the suit, it’ll be fine,” Steve said.

“I wasn’t thinking about the suit actually,” Tony told him.

“Oh.” Steve cleared his throat. “You know, we’d go a lot faster if you let me take the suit,” Steve noted, gesturing in the general direction of Tony’s backpack.

“If you say so,” Tony smirked, finally letting go of the armor and entrusting it to Steve.

 

**THE END**


End file.
